MasterChef Australia 2026 marks the franchise’s 18th season, and its enduring success speaks for itself; fans can’t get enough of the nail biting challenges, exceptional talent and genuine moments.
But, while the audience is shown a carefully curated episode which condenses hours of filming into a tightly edited hour of television, there’s a whole lot more that goes on behind the scenes.
To find out some more juicy info about what happens when the cameras aren’t rolling and to answer your BTS burning questions, we went straight to some for the former contestant’s, including Andre Ursini who starred on Season 1 and Season 17, and Juan De La Cruz from Season 16. They’ve dished on some MasterChef Australia behind-the-scenes secrets.
Here are all the MasterChef Australia secrets the cast spilled.
How long are MasterChef Australia filming days?
According to Andre, filming days can vary with some stretching up to 12 hours, but there’s a lot of downtime where contestants are required to wait in the green room.
“They were long days, but it wasn’t like they were heavily active. So you’d get off the couch in the green room, so you’re doing nothing, you’re lying around, and then you have to get up and you’re in the most intense environment for 75 minutes [during a cook],” he explains. “You go from zero to a million miles an hour, and then the adrenaline dump after is just nuts. It’s so unusual, and it’s so hard.
“It’s really, really challenging. It’s such a strange environment, and each person who goes through that deserves a clap.”
What happens to the leftover food?
Each MasterChef challenge sees contestants opening up new food items — like bags flour and sugar or a bottle of oil— which won’t be fully used on the day. Juan told Chattr that production actively works to ensure there’s no food wastage, and that everything that’s opened from the MasterChef pantry is used.
“Sometimes lots of food is donated to a charity called Second Chance and also the staff behind the cameras takes some [home],” Juan reveals. “I also remember sometimes by the end of the week, all the fresh food from the pantry such as veggies, fruits and even some meat was up for grabs. So we would take ingredients to practice ideas during the weekend.”
Do the MasterChef judges interact with the contestants outside of filming?
The MasterChef judges don’t spend time with the contestants outside of filming, with Andre saying the show is “very professional” and there are “significant boundaries”.
However, Andre is close with Poh Ling Yeow from when they competed together, and he told Chattr a sweet story about how she checks in on all eliminated contestants. “One thing which I love, which demonstrates how genuine she is, Poh really invests in time with each contestant that leaves to ensure that she contacts them, makes sure that they’re okay, how they felt and so forth,” he says. “She’s a gem.”
The MasterChef Australia 2025 judges. Image: 10
Do the contestants practice cooking outside of hours?
Many MasterChef Australia contestants practice cooking outside of filming so they can be on their A-game for the competition, but Andre didn’t touch his tools for the entire time he was there.
“I was a weird one because I actually didn’t cook. I cooked one dish in my apartment over three months and it wasn’t cooking… it was a salad,” he jokes. “I had takeaway, I had Uber [Eats] a lot, and I didn’t have any cookbooks in my apartment either,” Andre says. “I did have a different take on the competition. I didn’t train for it, so to speak, like a lot of the others did, and they’re getting rewarded for it.”
Do the MasterChef Australia contestants get together socially outside of filming hours?
Yes! The bonds formed between the MasterChef Australia contestants are genuine. “We’re with each other from say 6am to maybe 7 or 8 o’clock at night, Monday to Friday, give or take. We’re with each other a lot, and even your best friends become a bit annoying. Like I don’t even hang out that much with my wife or my best mates at home,” he jokes. “It’s a strange environment, but often you would have drinks after just to decompress and discuss what the hell just happened, because you’re going through sort of this weird adrenaline dump daily, and you do rely on that sort of feedback from each other.
“We generally did hang out and created this really unique bond with people.”
The MasterChef Australia cast become really close. Image: 10
Do the contestants cook for each other?
Andre never cooked for his fellow contestants, but he did receive a bunch of meals from Jamie Fleming. “Jamie actually cooked a lot for me. I felt like his faux-child because he was cooking me dinner with his Asian techniques and ingredients. That was nice, that was lovely, that was bonding,” Andre spills.
“One of the best dinners we had… we all met, and everyone brought a dish, and it was an incredible dining experience in the hotel. Audra [Morrice] did a dish, Depinder [Chhibber], I bought Uber [Eats] for them, but that was probably one of the most memorable, everyone had their expertise and skill sets in their dish and it was just a really special moment.”
No wonderthis environment was the perfect place for Sarah Todd and Declan Cleary to fall in love. Maybe it’s a better place for romance than MAFS.
Do the MasterChef judges taste the food while it’s still hot?
With so many dishes for the judges to taste — especially at the start of the season — it can be hard for the judges to taste the food piping hot.
In 2021, contestant Jess Hodge told Now to Love that immediately after the clock stops the judges start trying dishes.
“They do most of the time [eat the food cold], but after everyone’s finished cooking and time is called, the judges come around to the benches and try everything,” she shared.
“So they know what they’re expecting, and they know what the dishes taste like, so if something does change too much while they are waiting to eat it, at least they have an idea of what the intention was.”
MasterChef Australia airs on Sundays at 7pm and Monday – Wednesday at 7:30pm on Channel 10 and 10Play.
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